It's This Way to Curzon Street
by LisaDouglas
Summary: Jean and Lionel reunite in 1963 just after she's widowed and he's newly married to Margaret.


Chapter One: Five-Hundred and Fifty-Eight Pounds

London, April 1963

Jean bit the end of her pencil nervously as her eyes darted back and forth across the Time's classified section. She wasn't sure why she was bothering. It was only the millionth time she'd looked at it that day. Nonetheless, she was trying very hard to focus on her reading, almost as if she were attempting to will a potential job to appear on the page when it just wasn't there. Jean stopped, suddenly overcome by a wave of nausea. The motion of the train car rocking back and forth jumbled the words she was so focused on and created this strange kind of motion-sickness that she just couldn't stand: she'd been ill enough lately as it was. Jean took a deep breath, putting the paper down on her lap and laying her head in her hands. Lately, she found that deep breaths really helped steady her.

Perhaps Penny was right and she really did need some more time before she retrieved Judith…even if she did she couldn't wait any longer. She missed her little girl and couldn't stand living without her anymore. Not after all these weeks she'd spent apart from her…apart from everyone. The house was too empty and she felt isolated from the world. It was time to start trying to be normal again and Judith was part of that normal.

Jean deployed her umbrella as she walked up out of the tube and back onto the street. It was gloomy out and pouring rain, but she couldn't help but feel a glimmer of hope in her heart amid the inclement weather and severe depression she'd been enduring these past few weeks. At least today, she got to take her baby home. Tiny Judy was precious to her. She was all she had left in the world now and better: she looked just like David.

Jean rang Penny and Stephen's doorbell and made sure to put on a fake smile, just for show as she waited for someone to answer. She knew that Penny would never give her Judy if she seemed depressed. Penny was convinced that she was bitterly depressed, when she was really just sad and maybe a little shell-shocked.

"Hello Penny." Jean greeted when Penny answered.

"Jean! I didn't expect you so soon." Penny laughed nervously and opened the door for Jean to come inside. Jean picked up on the fact that she seemed to hesitate, almost as if she didn't want to let her in.

"Well, this is the day, remember, it was all arranged beforehand, I've come to take Judy home…"

"Oh poor Jean, however will you manage?" Penny asked.

"We will." Jean didn't know how, but she knew for sure that they would. They had to.

"But without David you know…" Penny began. "Perhaps Judith should stay here. Stephen and I have grown accustomed to taking care of…"

Jean shut this out immediately, refusing to even entertain the thought. This was not the first time that Penny had suggested that she and her husband Stephen should keep and raise Judy, and while she had appreciated the help these past few weeks, Jean was more than offended by the idea. She'd just lost her husband, why in the world should she give up her daughter too? And on top of that, she resented the idea Penny was really conveying to her: that she couldn't successfully raise her child alone.

"No, no. We'll be just fine Penny. I promise." Jean reassured. "W-where is Judy?" She asked. Penny was making her nervous and she was growing more anxious to see her daughter by the moment.

"She's just in the next room." Penny explained. She was disappointed, and had hoped she could convince Jean to leave the young girl in her care. Nonetheless, Penny began to escort Jean into the living room.

"Wait." Jean said, grabbing Penny's arm and stopping her before she could take her to her. Penny hoped she'd very suddenly changed her mind. "It all happened so fast and I haven't really seen her…what have you told her?"

"About?" Penny raised an eyebrow. Jean swallowed nervously.

"About where Mummy was all this time….or what happened to Daddy." Jean could barely get this out. She didn't want to cry in front of Penny.

"Oh. Nothing. We didn't want to traumatize poor Judith."

"N-nothing?" Jean questioned in disbelief.

Two-year-old Judy's world had completely turned upside-down in the past few weeks. She'd been living with Penny and Stephen since the day of her father's accident and had had almost no contact with her mother since then. Judith was a sensitive child who was very clingy to her parents. There was no way she hadn't been upset about their absence and asking questions about them. Now Jean knew she couldn't have arrived at Penny's any sooner, Judy must be panicked.

"Judith. Someone's here to see you." Penny announced unexcitedly.

"Mummy!" Judy screeched and reached for her mother.

"Hello sweetheart." Jean said, picking her up and hugging her tightly. "Mummy missed you so much." Judy would never know how much.

"Poor Jean, poor Judith." Jean and Judy both looked up from their embrace when they heard Penny begin to moan. "How will you ever make it? You're just heartbroken aren't you?"

…

"Don't worry love, Aunt Penny's wrong. We'll make it." Jean reassured as they walked up the steps to their own house.

Judy clapped as they walked into the house. She understood that they were home and was extremely excited about it. She'd hated staying with Aunt Penny. Even though she was only two, Penny annoyed her and made her feel suffocated.

"That's right!" Jean laughed, placing Judy down on the floor.

Judy stood there a second and looked around, surveying her surroundings. She was home, but she sensed that something about the place was profoundly different. She'd never seen it like this: the house was a huge mess and completely quiet, almost more still than quiet. In a second she knew what was missing.

"Dada?" Judy asked, she looked up at her mother with huge questioning eyes.

Jean was frozen. She didn't know what to say. She hadn't been expecting that she'd have to be the one to explain to her that her father was dead. She figured that Penny and Stephen would've, especially after they'd been the ones to bring her to the funeral. Jean sighed and stared down at the little girl who she knew expected an answer. She didn't know how to say something like this to her daughter; especially given that she was so young.

"Oh love." Jean began. She got on her knees and began to remove her daughter's raincoat and boots. Judy said nothing more and watched her mother carefully, understanding that something was wrong.

"No cry." Judy said, poking her mother's cheek with an index finger when she noticed tears pooling in Jean's eyes. Jean laughed and took Judy's hand in her own.

"I'll be alright." She promised. "Your Aunt Penny doesn't think so, does she?" Judy simply shook her head no. "I didn't think so." Jean bit her lip.

"Dada?" She asked again, she'd broken away from her mother's grasp and had toddled down the hall. "Dad?" She called, poking her head in the living room door. Judy waited a few seconds and turned back to her mother when her calls for her father were greeted with what Jean would one day recall as a chilling silence.

"Oh come here love." Jean held out her arms, and Judy, worried now, hurried into them. She scooped the little girl up into a hug and began to rock her, remaining on her knees in the entryway of the house. "Judy…Daddy's not here honey."

Judy said nothing and instead listened carefully, laying her head on her mother's shoulder. She put her fingers in her mouth and began to carefully consider what she had said. She didn't understand but she knew it was bad.

"Dada where?"

"Judy…honey…"

Jean wondered what she was supposed to say…how was a two-year-old child supposed to even begin to comprehend the enormity of this situation? What could she say to make her understand? Jean quickly ran through all the things she thought she could possibly say, and all quickly realized that they'd all confuse or scare her.

"Oh….that's…that's not an easy question to answer love. You see…he didn't want to leave us…b-but i-it was his time."

"Dada love?" Judy asked.

"Oh!" Jean was surprised and the idea brought tears to her eyes again.

Perhaps Judy was capable of a deeper understanding than she'd realized previously. Not only that, this was both the nicest and the most heartbreaking thing anyone had said to her in all these weeks since David had died.

"Yes Judy. He still loves you. And he loves me."

…..

"Excuse me, can you tell me, which way to Curzon Street?"

The young Second Lieutenant had asked this, not because he was really lost, but because the need to speak to the girl on the park bench was so pressing he had to ask something. He'd never forgive himself if he didn't. Curzon Street was the first thing that came to mind that he was sure he could say without tripping all over his own tongue.

In reality, only Lionel had just been to Curzon Street. All these years later, he no longer remembered what she said in reply, but the smile that greeted him when the girl looked up from her book was permanently enshrined in his mind. Maybe on his heart too…Lionel laughed, wondering why he was hurting himself by thinking back to something that hadn't turned out like he'd desperately wanted…now that he'd begun thinking about her though, he couldn't help but wonder where she was and if she ever thought of him. He thought of her but he wasn't sure why he was just then. Perhaps its because he was back in London after being in Kenya so long.

"Lionel." Margaret asked, shaking his arm. She rolled her eyes; sometimes it was hard to get his attention. She hated that about him. "Lionel!"

"Oh! I'm sorry, what is it?" He asked, turning to his wife who sat next him in the back of the taxi.

"We're almost there, and you're just staring off with that smile on your face… We're here for a funeral, can't you try to be a little more…upset?" She asked. Margaret was upset; her favorite Uncle had just died.

Lionel didn't think the news was sad; the man had lived a good and long life, and succumbed to natural causes in his sleep at age ninety-eight. In truth, he wondered if his wife wasn't feigning sadness because she knew she was about to inherit a lot of money and wanted to look good to the rest of her family. He also wondered why she didn't care to know what he'd been smiling about: he'd sure want to know if she were the one smiling. But then again, Margaret was the least curious person he'd ever met.

"Curzon Street." The taxi driver announced, reaching his hand out the window to open Lionel's door for him. "Would you like to go any further?" He asked.

"No, no this would be just fine." Lionel agreed, taking out his wallet to pay the driver.

…..

Jean sat up late that night in David's office after she'd tucked Judy in bed. It wasn't really an office: just a desk area at the edge of their cozy little living room. She had never sat there when he was alive, and even now she felt as if she were invading her husband's privacy. The truth was he wouldn't have cared if she'd sat there, David wasn't like that: she'd just never sat there. She felt he should have some corner of the house that was just his own and this had been it. Now it was her office and she didn't think she liked that very much.

Jean carefully opened the desk drawer where David had kept the checkbook. She'd been dreading going through their finances. David had made the money and managed it, but that didn't mean she didn't have some idea what shape they were in, she knew it was bad. For example, she knew she needed a job…the sooner, the better. The only saving grace was that she knew the house was hers outright. She didn't have to worry about putting a roof over their head, just about keeping them warm and fed.

But warm and fed was the problem, wasn't it? She hadn't worked in years and she didn't know what she could do anyway, she supposed there was hardly call for Korean War nurses these days…and plus there was nowhere to put Judy…she was too young for school and Penny wasn't an option…and then there was that little thing she hadn't told anyone about. David had known but now it was her secret alone. Jean took another deep breath to steady herself as she hesitantly lowered her eyes to the figure in red, at the bottom of the checkbook: the sum total of their savings.

"F-five hundred and fifty-eight pounds." She muttered, laughing at first, then clasping her hand to her mouth. Was that really all he'd left her? How long were they supposed to last on that?

Jean felt that the room was closing in on her and quickly stood up as she started to panic.

"F-five hundred and fifty-eight pounds…are you kidding David, it's a joke, right? You're kidding…" She laughed again, stopping to look at the book again. She glanced more carefully this time, going through at least a month's worth of their money, before he'd died, in just a glance, wondering how much of that five-hundred-and-fifty-eight pounds she'd spent in the three weeks since David's death… "No, you're not kidding, are you?" She asked, jean sunk back into the chair and began to cry.


End file.
